I also wonder how much culture clash there are for foreigners working at these companies e.g. how do they handle conflicts or disagreements with seniority.
A large foreign company like say Google or an international bank will pay more competitive wages than a domestic company. While startups likely have more variability in pay the same pattern holds.
I’ve seen ranges senior devs that are for approx $70k USD. That’s a huge pay cut for someone coming from the US. If you were teaching English in Japan that would be a huge step up however.
Similarly culture will be better for a foreign company than a domestic one — hours, overtime, company politics, etc. Your language ability would also be a critical factor.
Consequently, for me, it seems better to develop a career in the US and visit Japan. Now a company that is 100% remote that would allow you to live anywhere in the world and pay US wages would be an interesting opportunity.
Japan is still a buyer's market, and companies are constantly looking for engineers. It's all a matter of applying to high-paying company[1] and passing their interview. Granted, the competition for these companies is much higher, but the competition for software talent is also high.
If you can get a 15M/y salary at one of the top paying companies, you can have quite a good life in Tokyo. There is a certain fantasy of unattainable Tokyo that is perpetuated by expatriate cost of living rankings like Mercer's[1]. An American expat relocated on company expense looking to match their standard of living with a spacious 100 square meter apartment in a classy neighborhood in central Tokyo (like Roppongi or Azabu) is will go north of 400k yen per month, which is not much cheaper than what it would be in SF, I guess. If you go ahead and make sure it is fitted to US standards - with space for dish washer and standalone clothes dryer, built-in oven, and a bedroom which can fit a king-size bed - you can very well end up with a 800k per month.
But considering Tokyo's amazing public transportation system, you don't need to - and usually don't want to - live in central Tokyo. You can go to a station that's 10 minutes away by train from Shibuya or Shinjuku and pay half the price for a larger apartment or even a standalone house - or alternatively get tiny studio apartment for 60k per month.
[1] https://japan-dev.com/blog/software-developer-salaries-in-ja...
They exist, but you don't just get free reign to work wherever you want. Most countries tax systems are not well equipped to handle international income, so you have to figure that out for every country you stay in, or try to fly under the radar and potentially commit a felony in a foreign country.
It's getting better though, with some countries starting to offer specific visas and tax options for digital nomad style living.
The company doesn't pay someone in San Francisco more than someone in Kansas because the San Francisco worker has a higher cost of living, they do it because the San Francisco worker would go work for someone else for more money if they didn't. The worker in Kansas doesn't have that alternative option.
Now, as more and more companies become primarily remote employers, we will likely see the location based variance for workers diminish. However, this is likely to mean that the higher cost of living places see their wages decrease more than lower cost of living places increase.
- housing is literally 4x or 5x or even 10x the pricing elsewhere in the US.
Rent is easily in that category too.
- food, fuel for your car, electricity, and literally everything including haircuts is more expensive there.
Often, several times more expensive.
Pay = base needs + retirement savings + extra money for lifestyle/fun + bonus for skill set
If base needs + retirement needs + lifestyle/fun costs go up/down, then of course pay will go up/down.
Yes, 'skill set' remains static. Unless, of course, there is a surplus in one area (people not willing to move), and a shortage in another.
In that case, yup.. guess what! That commodity becomes more valuable.
I'm not sure why many people find all of the above confusing.
With that observation, whether the software is made in SF for one unit of cost or in a cheaper place for 1/4 unit of cost, the company sells it for the same amount and it’s profitable.
Ergo, software produced anywhere yields the same amount of money to the company. So why should people get paid less no matter where they live if they produce the same output for the company? Isnt that unfair?
I’m not talking within the US where someone could move to the higher COL city and get paid more for the same output (if it made financial sense, after living expenses etc) but about people who can’t move countries because they’ll never get a visa for instance.
How is it fair, then, that a SV engineer gets paid 200k to produce software, and her colleague in Turkey gets paid a tenth of that for the same output? It’s not because they’re producing less valuable code, the company sells the product for the same price to anyone anywhere.
But the Turkish engineer is basically told by the company that because she’s stuck there and she can’t move elsewhere, then it’s normal to get paid a tenth of her SV colleague.
How is that fair?
You're effectively complaining that capitalism isn't entirely fair. Yes? And?
You're also saying "The US is wealthy, people are paid more there, that's not fair". Yes? What's you're point?
Nothing is entirely fair. Other political and economic systems suck too. So?
Don't conflate "companies paying by a logical, sensible, fair means under a free market economy" with "Turkey is a poorer country, due to social, cultural, historical issues, and therefore, someone 1/2 a world away should help. And not help my entire country, but just give me a few random people, software engineers, more wealth."
If Turkish law, case history, employment law, market and economics was the same, then likely there would be more upward pressure on wages. In other words, the way to "fix" this, is to make Turkey a 100% clone of the US, along with all of its history, and most importantly, with the cultural outlook many have in the US.
But I bet that isn't what a lot of people in Turkey want, is it?
To put it another way, you’re employing an individual to make you a thing you’ll sell for 1000$, you’re paying that person 10$ because you can get away with it since they live in a poorer country. If that same person was living in the US (for instance), you’d pay them 30$ if they lived somewhere cheap or 200$ if they lived in SV. Same individual, same skills, same output, same product. The only thing that changes is where that person lives which isn’t always a free choice because visas mostly.
Framed differently, why is it fair to pay women less than men for the same job? We actually don’t think it’s fair judging from the lip service most companies pay to that issue and the laws written in a lot of countries. In that case, the personal circumstances that influence salary is sex, in what we were discussing before it’s where you live.
What we're talking about pay, relative to where you live. This is NOT discrimination, but market forces at work.
I honestly can't even understand where you're coming from. You're essentially just asking for free money here.
For people, shareholders, companies, foreign governments to hand over free money, for no other reason because you don't like how the economy works.
Let’s agree to disagree and leave it at that then.
Not very sporting, now is that?
You're saying you believe individual's rights trump company's rights. Well sure, I agree with that.
But that is an insanely broad statement, and yet you're claiming I see it differently, which really can be used to infer that I'm some sort of careless bastard.
Let's be clear. When you mentioned 'individuals', what you've meant this entire time is 'a person in a foreign country, working in software engineering".
That's it. That's the extent of your definition of 'individual'.
Any other 'individual' can go suck eggs, as far as you're concerned! You literally have thrown away all logic on living costs, not to mention you're heartlessly and carelessly disregarding all taxation!
What about all those taxes, federal, state, sales tax, gas tax, property tax, city taxes, which go to help the homeless? Those are a part of that salary too. Yet, you literally cannot understand, or refuse to get, the concept that salary pays, not just the engineer... but instead the entirety of cost to support that engineer.
People get so upset, that various governments don't help the poor, build infrastructure to help those in lower income brackets, try to make sure schools are funded, and so on.
California has crazy taxes, and a lot of that DOES go towards additional social programs. And therefore? That tax creates upward pressure on engineer salaries, which means?
Part of that wage is "high", due to that taxation. Yet you aim to use that AGAINST companies, and instead, force them to pay that SAME SALARY, without local taxation, to some guy in ... well, anywhere but the US, as you've said.
Like places with reduced human rights. Or horribly restrictive laws. Or a disregard for the rights of women, minorities, and more!
Yup, screw it all and nail a bucket to a post, just gimme gimme gimme that salary.
And say anything to make it a reality.
I don’t know you, I have nothing against you personally, I just don’t wish to argue the matter further since neither of us will change their mind and we’re most likely the only ones reading at that point.
So, tu sum up: you and I see this issue differently for different reasons, neither of us is better than the other, and your point of view has as much right to be had as mine.
> Rent is easily in that category too.
> Food, fuel for your car, electricity, and literally everything including haircuts is more expensive there
It still doesn't matter. On a $200k salary in SF your post-tax income is $10667/month. If you spend $4k/month on rent (there are plenty of decent apartments and even houses if you commute a little at that price), $2000 on bills, food, your remaining salary of ~4500 usd is now still greater than a mid level engineers gross pay in the rest of the world, including most of europe.
It's a balance, the causation can flow the other way, and I'm pretty sure is currently doing so. The reason SF is so inflated is because (some) people can afford it. That's why locals get angry at tech companies, because the insane wages enabled by the tech bubble have driven the price of everything up, while everyone else's wages aren't catching up.
If somehow you picked the bubble up and moved it away, there are no businesses in SF that could match the wages tech companies can, so fewer in SF could afford the inflated prices and they would drop back down to meet the wages that people are now getting.
You can see the same thing happen when foreign housing investment is unregulated, and people with far more money than the community they're buying in purchase homes and push the market way up. People who live within the economic bounds of the community the houses are in can't afford it.
The longest open jobs in public boards are unsurprisingly those devs don't want because they pay too little. So if you try to estimate pay based on those boards I'd say you are under-estimating it.
There's another school of thought here; there's actually a lot of value that you could bring by emphasizing the fact that you can act as a bridge between foreign engineers and japanese ones.
Can you live on $70k? Yes. You will likely live in a small-ish apartment and not save that much. At least to me, at $70k I felt like a failure in Tokyo. A lot of things go into that feeling.
1. Not being able to afford what I considered a "nice" apartment. Like say as nice as the one I was living in before I cam in So Cal with 2 bedrooms, a nice living room, 2 bathrooms, etc. Those apartments exist. They're probably $2500 a month a few stops out of downtown. If you move way out they can get way cheaper but then you aren't downtown.
2. Having "finance" jobs and corresponding lifestyle in front of my face. Before I moved to Japan I thought I was doing well (never compared). Once I got here, at least at the time, the English free magazines around town are all targeting expats in finance. Those people, at the time, made $300k to $1000k a year and live in $4k to $20k a month apartments provided by their comapany so their salary is even higher. At $70k I don't I can justify spending more than about $1400 a month on an apartment.
That said, if I was just out of college, even at $40k-$50k I think I'd have thought things were pretty good. In other words, "it depends" on what you find acceptable. I took a big step down in lifestyle to live here at the time.
Food costs about the same - a ramen is about ~400-500 円 (~ a Chipotle burrito ?), and food at restaurants would cost about the same as the US. Groceries, and Electronics cost slightly higher. Finding Vegan/Vegetarian food is like coming across an Oasis in a desert.
Nevertheless, Japan is a far more interesting place.
Something that hasn’t been mentioned is the role of women. While many more women work there are still barriers, discrimination and the cultural tendency for women to be full time mothers/housewives. So $70k is household income.
Lastly, one needs to take time into consideration. A couple hours on the train commuting and a couple hours of overtime can add up to long days. So on a $ per hour basis it might not be that good.
I’m always baffled by this kind of comments. The world isn’t made of SV engineers making 300K$/year, living in appartment with 5K appartment and buying 40$ sandwiches. Sure, most places and jobs are paying less, but cost of living is also lower. In Japan for instance eating out is cheap compared to Europe. Healthcare is accessible too. Cooking can help saving money too. Heck, I’m living (alone) fine with $16K/year (yes, per year) in one of the biggest Japanese city and I still can go to parties, buy video games, travel abroad while saving some money.
Another thing which a foreigner would have a hard time finding out is how much you have to spend on decent domestic staff or private tutors.
They could look up English speaking companies serving the Anglo expat market, but the local middle class is likely able to get those services for dramatically different prices.
For comparison, an L5-L6 at Amazon or the equivalent would make something similar in India. Japan for some reason hasn't valued Software as much as Hardware (a race it's also losing), despite having successes with the Playstation etc.
In Tokyo you'd expect to make around 400,000 yen a month, which is about $3500 a month. That sounds nice until you see that a 400sqft apartment with no bedrooms can cost 100,000 yen or more. A one bedroom can hit 150,000 - 200,000 yen in a nice area with convenient access to train stations.
Edit: the website linked has good statistics on this:
https://www.tokyodev.com/2020/01/07/japan-developer-salaries...
Notably, "this 2018 survey conducted by the Japanese government found that the average "System Engineer" (a roughly analogous position to a software developer) in Japan had 12 years of experience and an annual compensation of ¥5.5 million."
Companies typically pay your commuting fees so it's an attractive option for some who don't mind riding trains for awhile.
There is plenty of housing much more reasonably priced than that. Just don’t live in central Minato-ku.
The rest of the world doesn't have such extreme market forces, and there are even subsets of the software market in the US that also can't afford to pay at that level because they have more traditional business models.
You could say wages for devs in the US are more closely tied to the value they provide to the tech bubble and it's inflated economics, not the value they provide to society in traditional business models.
This is also why there are more "family owned" style small software companies in the rest of the world. A single SV wage would be more than some companies yearly revenue.
Just putting this here for people to know it might be an option. I certainly wish I knew sooner. Visa can be tricky though, if you’re not at least an EU citizen (or better yet, married to a Swiss), it’ll tough getting a visa. And I’d you’re American, no bank will touch you with a ten foot pole.
That’s my understanding, if I made a mistake please correct me.
Yes food costs more, so does clothing etc. But taxes aren’t suuuper high in my opinion (around 20-30% with health insurance paid separately), VAT is 7.7%, and you can get anywhere by train for quite cheap (super saver tickets let you go across Switzerland for 20 francs, if you plan a bit ahead).
The caveat is that unless you have an EU passport or marry a Swiss, it’s almost impossible to get a work visa. And if you’re a US citizen, there is no bank that will want to take you as a customer.
Banks are a big employer but there are also insurance companies. I’m joking, these two are big but there are startups as well, consultancies, big entreprise type of jobs, etc.
Adding to that, most people live with their family until they get married in their early thirties and over half of the permanent resident population live in very heavily subsidised public housing.
It's truly fascinating because I've never seen a city in Japan that costs anywhere near as much as some podunk local economic hub in the US, yet I hear these "it's too expensive" stories all the time.
My combined monthly expenses in a city--rent, food, and everything--comes to maybe $1200. My mind is blown whenever I hear people say they're struggling to pay for things or life is too expensive. The main thing I've noticed is most of these people are going to bars/izakaya several times a week, and it's easy to spend $50+ for a small meal and some beers there. I know people in Tokyo making far less than Western wages but still living very comfortably.
But in-city rent in Japan doesn't even approach a typical 500k population city in the US , unless you're insisting on living in the middle of the most in demand parts of Shibuya or something.
Many "perks" are provided by companies, this includes dinners, drinks tax breaks on your company housing etc.
The vast majority of people who are employed in Japan are also part of a family, which is their company. Your company even sends you for health checkups and they know the results of said checkups. If you're overweight, they'll make you go lose it etc.
Even peoples managers or the companies president will come speak at an employees wedding.
It's a totally different culture.
Here's some good numbers at different experience levels: https://www.tokyodev.com/2020/01/07/japan-developer-salaries...
I'll trust his higher end estimate of 16+ years netting you 11 million yen, but I've never seen a job posting anywhere near that even for senior engineers. And even if that is the case, 11 million yen is still far below a FAANG salary with equivalent experience.
My guess is a very experienced developer that speak English and Japanese can get base salaries above ¥10m at FAANG in Tokyo. So probably ¥15m with bonus and RSUs is obtainable.
In which direction?
I am out of touch of FAANG senior dev salaries are in London now. Does that sound on par?
Can't speak for startups but megacorps started in the last 10 years tend to be pretty chill places to work with good pay and perks. My current team is managed by a foreigner and there's a 50/50 split between local and foreign engineers. I haven't personally had any issues attributable to culture, they can still happen but you tend to have to go looking for them.
> it should at least be higher than megacorps
Yes, with exceptions
> how much culture clash there are for foreigners
In my subjective and limited experience, not much. Start-ups in Japan are rare (compared to most tech cities), Japanese founders/employees often do not want to emulate the working culture of big companies, on the contrary they might work in a startup to avoid it. Knowledge of English and living abroad experience also seem more common than average
https://japan-dev.com/blog/software-developer-salaries-in-ja...